Hilary Weeks conducted an experiment by counting the number of positive thoughts she had in a day using a clicker. She found that by counting them, it encouraged her to try to have more of them. She found that by focusing on the positive thoughts you have, you end up having more.

"By feeding my mind, I'm feeding my soul."

She started a website specifically devoted to clicking positive thoughts: www.billionclicks.org. Here you can purchase a clicker if you wish to, as well as enter in your number of positive clicks each day.

Change your mindset and your self-talk. Sometimes this is hard, everyone has bad days. She chose to repeat a phrase daily to herself "I am a courageous, healthy, beautiful, capable, dynamic woman". These were words that she struggled with.

If you're not feeling your phrase one day, repeat the phrase and think about what each word means and how you are those words. What is the definition of capable and in what ways are you capable.

They talked about a term radical transparency. There are 3 realms this needs to be present in: with yourself, your spouse and your God.

They discussed 5 areas of life to share with your spouse in particular:

Emotion - What is your emotion of the day? You don't need to share every feeling you had all day. But be aware of how your emotion is playing in your day and share that with your spouse. Warn your spouse when you're having an off day ("be gentle with me today"). Also, express gratitude for what your spouse does. Dino said that "Men like to feel like heroes" so if you tell them what you appreciate (even when you're having a bad day) will really help them feel appreciated.

Requests - Use a verbal sandwich to request things from your spouse: (bread) acknowledge what your spouse did right; (meat) your nice request; (bread) express gratitude. When you make the request, don't use criticism and sarcasm or negative behaviour or energy. Get your spouse on your side/team so they want to give what you request. Use language like "I'd really feel loved if... It would really make me happy if..."

Dreams/Goals - Declare these to your spouse. Dreams and goals help our marriages grow and move forward over years. Share dreams both for yourself and for your marriage.

Intimacy - Ask for what you need in the bedroom. Suggest things to try the next time you have sex (ie. tomorrow let's try this). Again use a verbal sandwich so it doesn't sound like a criticism (because it shouldn't be). They suggest this book as a place to learn how to talk about intimacy: The Act of Marriage.

There are 3 more speaking events so I'll update you on the rest tomorrow. So far it's been really interesting. I'm loving the positive thinking phrase and the verbal sandwich. Those are two things that I'm going to try to implement right away!